8 Fascinating Reads

Good reads, short quotes.

A pair of new surveys released Tuesday by the firm – one of 32,000 workers worldwide and another of 1,637 human resources executives – found that employees rate job security as a critical factor when deciding whether to accept a new position or stay with their current employer. Yet for employers asked to consider the most important drivers of retention and hiring, that factor either comes dead last in a list of seven or doesn't register at all.

Half of Americans (51%) are worried they will not be able to afford anything more than the basic necessities and two in five (41%) are worried that they will not have enough money for basic necessities such as food, housing, clothes, and transport.

Home-buying would also become more attractive. Right now there are limits to how much mortgage interest humans can deduct. But if you analogize your primary residence to a "corporate headquarters" and your vacation homes to "branch offices," you can deduct the full interest on every McMansion you ever buy.

Last year just over 1m babies were born, far fewer than the number needed to maintain the population, which is expected to drop from 127m to around 87m by 2060. Why are young Japanese so loth to procreate?

The spiral of demographic decline is spinning faster as the number of women of child-bearing age falls. In May a report predicted that 500 or more towns across the country will disappear by around 2040 as young women migrate to bigger cities. The workforce is already shrinking, imperiling future growth. In recent years governments have embarked on a plethora of schemes to encourage childbearing, including a "women's handbook" to educate young females on the high and low points of their fertility, and state-sponsored matchmaking events.